Page 11 - LatAmOil Week 37

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Mideast: Export facilities come into focus in the US Gulf of Mexico and on the Gulf Coast
State-owned Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC) this week this week as Hurricane Sally strengthened and
cancelled an 11-well drilling project in the north moved towards the region. The storm is the
of the country as it faces challenging headwinds second in less than four weeks to result in shut-
from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, downs and evacuations after Hurricane Laura
depressed demand and weak oil prices. However, passed through the Gulf and made landfall in
it’s not all bad news in the Western Gulf, as a ten- Louisiana in late August as a Category 4 storm.
der was launched for the construction of facili- Efforts to clean up damage from Laura are
ties related to Kuwait’s Jurassic gas development. still ongoing in the Lake Charles area.
Both of the projects relate to vast northern The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental
deposits that have been planned for develop- Enforcement (BSEE) reported that as of Sep- Norway’s DNO
ment for years. However, the thinking behind tember 14, personnel had been evacuated from has announced
the move is that the cost-intensiveness of devel- a total of 147 production platforms, or 22.86% of
oping heavy oil makes that project less viable the 643 manned platforms in the Gulf. Three rigs a milestone at
than the expansion of gas capabilities that can – or 30% of the 10 non-dynamically positioned
generate electricity, allowing for greater volumes rigs – had also been evacuated, while two had its Peshkabir
of crude to be exported. moved off location and out of the storm’s path.
Progress continued elsewhere in the region The BSEE estimated that around 21.39% of gas capture and
with Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) Gulf oil production and roughly 25.28% of the injection project
awarding two significant engineering, procure- region’s gas output had been shut in. This equates
ment and construction (EPC) contracts for work to 395,790 bpd of oil and 685.03mn cubic feet
at its Jebel Dhanna Terminal, and Iran carrying (19.4 mcm) per day of gas that has been taken
out important maintenance at the offshore South offline.
Pars gas field. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), the
Meanwhile, Norway’s DNO announced US’ sole offshore export terminal, suspended the
a milestone at its Peshkabir gas capture and loading of tankers on September 13, with the
injection project, announcing that 1bn cubic onshore Port of New Orleans shutting the fol-
feet (28mn cubic metres) of gas has now been lowing day.
captured. The project will allow the company to The outages may help prop up crude prices,
reduce its carbon intensity to 7 kg of CO2e for which have been declining again recently amid
each barrel of oil equivalent (boe) produced. strengthening supply and weak demand. Indeed,
the US and Canada are among the countries
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping whose recovering oil production has been con-
the Middle East’s oil and gas sector then please click tributing to recent price weakness.
here for NewsBase’s MEOG Monitor.
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
North America: Another storm brewing the North American oil and gas sector then please click
Producers and refiners were shutting operations here for NewsBase’s NorthAmOil Monitor . ™

Week 3 17•September•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P11